Where Our Horizons Meet
by TheSummerNightingale
Summary: Hermione tried to save Fred on the seventh floor corridor during the Battle of Hogwarts. Except something strange happened when she fired the spell; when she regains consciousness, she finds herself in the year of 1977, the Marauder's era, and she's not alone. This is the story of Hermione Granger and Blaise Zabini, time travel, and the clash of two vastly different horizons.
1. The Seventh-Floor Corridor

**Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot and my love for Blaise Zabini.**

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Sound reached eighteen-year-old Hermione Granger before any other sense could.

As she muddily swam into consciousness, she heard the voices as if they were simultaneously coming from the left and the right and above and below. It hurt her head to listen.

"… we must do something, Albus…"

"They look barely eighteen…"

"...look like this?…"

The trickle of voices faded with dizzying pain as touch returned. She tried to move her fingers. Sharp needles pricked the one joint she moved, and the sensation crept up her arm in a twisted dance of raw pain. Her chest hurt most of all, as if something very heavy had crushed all the bones beneath and mercilessly burned the hot skin above.

Hermione struggled to open her heavy eyelids. Her head throbbed angrily as if on fire, a feeling that made her suddenly reminiscent of the drawing room at Malfoy Manor.

For a heart-stopping moment, Hermione's confusion outweighed her senses and she wondered if she was back under Bellatrix Lestrange's wand.

She involuntarily gasped. The voices to the side immediately fell silent.

"Was that–?"

"Yes, I believe so."

A pattering of footsteps followed the voices. The footsteps stopped beside her; she could identify at least two pairs, which meant it could be Harry and Ron, two Order members, or two Death Eaters.

"It's alright," said a voice that sounded vaguely familiar - but not like Harry's or Ron's. Feminine. "You're safe now."

A hand touched her shoulder, and Hermione twisted away, ignoring the pain that ripped across her chest. She tried to adjust her eyes to the bright light but she could barely make out the woman's face above her own.

She was still at Hogwarts; Hermione could tell that much from the texture of the stone floor beneath her hands. Through her groggy vision and watering eyes from the incredible pain in her chest, Hermione squinted at the tapestry on the opposite wall.

She could hardly see it, but she recognized the flashy gold thread and long red rope. Barnabas the Barmy. So, she thought, she was in the seventh floor corridor.

Intuitively, Hermione's eyes widened in horror. "Fred!"

At least, that's what she meant to say. Her voice made only an intelligible sound, but it hardly mattered when Hermione remembered now: She had been standing in the seventh floor corridor with Harry and Ron after their experience in the Room of Lost Things, Ravenclaw's diadem dangling from Harry's burned hand. Fred and Percy had been in front of them when the outside wall suddenly blasted open - the result of an attack by the Death Eaters.

Hermione's flood of memories stopped then, and she fought desperately to remember what happened next. There had been some bright light, a wall was crumbling down, and _Fred_ , he'd been standing closest to the wall. She gasped aloud as she remembered flashes of debris blocking her vision, but her wand pointed at Fred. A bright shield had erupted from her wand, a great white light, and then nothing -

"Fred? Is that the name of the young man that came with you?"

Hermione suddenly jerked her head to turn towards the second woman's voice that she now recognized.

"Professor McGonagall?"

Relieved, and reminded of the dangerous situation they were in, she tried to lift herself from the ground, gasping from the dust in her throat. "Professor," she coughed. "They're all - they're all in the corridor! The wall was blasted open -"

"Don't excite yourself, dear," said the other woman, who put a warm hand on Hermione's shoulder again and eased her down. Hermione turned and saw it was Madam Pomfrey crouching beside her (except was it her imagination, or did the nurse look younger from what she last saw her, nearly one year ago?). "Your wounds will get worse."

Hermione knew the priority wasn't her wounds. It was finding Harry and Ron. She forced herself up in an attempt to look around the corridor despite Pomfrey's protests - and cried out, immediately crumpling forward and clutching at her chest.

Tears formed in her eyes, and she hated her weakness even as she felt her chest throb angrily beneath her dirty old Hogwarts robes. She thought again of the drawing room of Malfoy Manor, but this time with a different purpose. If she reminded herself of the excruciating pain she'd felt then, then perhaps her body would think this pain less harsh.

After some moments in which she could faintly hear her professors mumbling words to each other in the background, Hermione shakily tried again until she sat up straighter. She turned her head towards her teacher, ready to ask McGonagall where in Godric's name Harry and Ron were, and froze at who she saw.

Beside her, her hand went limp around her wand. Her mouth dropped open.

It couldn't be…

Hermione made as if to reach out her hand before pulling it back. It _couldn't_ be possible.

"Aberforth?" she asked uncertainly.

The face of a man with the long, grey beard standing behind Minerva McGonagall had appeared troubled and concerned until now. At the sound of his brother's name, the man's expression became curious and a little guarded. Hermione wanted to tear her eyes away but instead drank in the sight of his spectacles, his familiar blue wizarding robes, his perceptive blue eyes…

"No," the wizard said finally. "I am not my brother, though I wonder how it is that you know him."

A chunk of debris must have knocked her out and messed with her head. She was currently hallucinating. There was no other explanation for this madness. "No, it can't be… I must be dreaming, because you can't be him -"

She flashed a desperate look at Professor McGonagall, whose face was riddled with confusion and apprehension. But not at Dumbledore's presence. At, it seemed, hers.

"Professor, he _can't_ be here. He's _-_ " She cut herself off as a new thought surfaced. "I'm not… I haven't _died_ , have I?" she choked.

The nurse and professor gave matching gasps. and Dumbledore's eyes widened fractionally. "I think not. You seem quite alive to me," he said in that calm voice of his.

It was so bizarre that Hermione forced her eyes shut and focused on breathing. She couldn't allow her mind to play tricks on her right now; she had to compose herself, to think rationally. Now, what was the most important thing right now?

She opened her eyes and fought the fear in her chest. "I need to find Harry and Ron. We mustn't stay here, or the Death Eaters will-"

" _Death Eaters_?" the three adults interrupted at the same time.

"Yes," she said, quickly. "They're going to come any second now-"

Dumbledore placed a firm hand on her wand arm. " _Death Eaters_ , Miss…?"

Minerva McGonagall gripped the windowsill. "Albus, it can't be! You said they weren't attacking -"

She stopped abruptly when Dumbledore sent her a sharp look.

Madam Pomfrey put a hand to her mouth in horror before turning to Hermione sharply. "My dear, do explain. Why in Merlin's name have you associated with these - these -"

She seemed reluctant to say the name of Voldemort's followers. Perhaps while Hermione'd been on the run with Harry, Voldemort's growing power had made Wizarding society scared to say "Death Eaters" too.

McGonagall stared at Hermione. "Is it true that you've encountered these Death Eaters?" She was so pale that looked as if she was about to faint, but Hermione noticed that her hand had slipped into her wand pocket.

"Professors, _please_ ," Hermione implored, slightly apprehensive but mostly urgent. "We mustn't waste time. I've got to find to Harry and Ron."

Yet as she struggled to stand, gritting her teeth against the burning at her chest, the situation struck her again as overtly strange. McGonagall's wariness, all of their surprise at hearing her mention the Death Eaters. The fact that there was complete silence in the corridor. Even the floor felt strange, smooth and warm as she rose on unsteady feet.

She realized why, seconds later.

She was not in her Hogwarts.

At least, she wasn't in the ravaged Hogwarts whose walls were crumbling and whose windows were shattering. She wasn't in the Hogwarts that she'd just been fighting in. No… as she turned this way and that, jaw open, all she could see was the Hogwarts of her memories, walls pristine, torches lit, floor _perfectly smooth_. No blood or dirt or Death Eaters.

She should have felt relief at seeing the sturdy walls of the seventh floor corridor, the unblemished stone floor, and the intact windows. Instead Hermione felt nauseous.

She spun wildly to face her teachers, instinctively turning to the man who always knew the answers. "Where is this? The Death Eaters..."

"This is Hogwarts," said Madam Pomfrey.

"There are no Death Eaters in the here, we can assure you of that. Our protection wards are quite strong," said Professor McGonagall shakily. "Now if you could just explain where you've come from, and how you know of that - that brand of followers -"

"We only found you and the boy here. The boy, he is Fred? Perhaps the Harry or Ron you speak of?"

Madam Pomfrey shifted slightly to the right to reveal a young man lying on the ground. He was wearing torn black robes, cut at the bottom and ripped at his shoulder. There were cuts all along his arms and Hermione could see a small red blot of blood on his shirt at his chest. He was still unconscious.

He wasn't Harry or Ron or even Fred. It actually took Hermione a few seconds to remember the vaguely familiar face and thick black hair, but when she did think of his name, she immediately fumbled for her wand.

"Blaise Zabini," she muttered suspiciously, eyes locked on his limp form. "Where did you find him?"

"He's not who you're looking for?" said Madam Pomfrey, obviously puzzled. "We found him here next to you."

"But you didn't see anyone else? Did you see Harry or Ron?" Her own fear was evident to herself as she heard her high, anxious plea.

"No," said Professor McGonagall. "Only the two of you were found here."

Hermione raked the spotless corridor yet again with her eyes, but nothing indicated that the wall had ever been blasted through or that her friends had been here with her. Even Draco Malfoy and Gregory Goyle had disappeared from the place she, Harry, and Ron had left them outside the Room of Requirement.

She narrowed her eyes as she stared out of a window. There was yellow strip of light sinking into the mountains, but last she had remembered, it'd been in the middle of the night.

Hermione clutched her wand in her fist, trying to process the events amidst the throbbing in her head. Something wasn't adding up here; that was obvious. Hogwarts was perfectly intact. Harry and Ron were nowhere to be found, and Pomfrey and McGonagall seemed not to remember either of them. And for Blaise Zabini of all people to be here in this strange situation - Hermione frowned down at the Italian boy who was her age.

Zabini chose that moment to groan and force his eyes open to a world that wasn't his.

The four standing above him watched (Hermione warily, her wand pointed toward the Death Eater's chest) as he inched himself up from the ground. He appeared to be in better condition than she had been when she'd first woken up; within seconds, he was pushing himself into a sitting position.

The moment he glanced up and noticed the four people in his company, Zabini swore. His dark eyes immediately darted back and forth as if to search for an escape, but the four had formed some sort of semicircle around him as he sat up against the wall.

Professor McGonagall took a tentative step forward. "Are you alright?"

"Get away from me," Blaise said in a low voice. He wrapped his hand around his wand, which was on the ground beside him.

"Dear," said Madam Pomfrey, nervously fingering her own wand. "Like we told your friend here, you're at Hogwarts. You're safe."

"Safe?" he said incredulously. His eyes landed on Hermione, and though his face remained impassive, she spotted the recognition and surprise in his eyes. "Far from it."

Hermione didn't reply.

Removing his steady gaze from her, Zabini pressed his mouth into a firm line. "Hermione Granger can enlighten you. Surely you know she is the cause of this, with the company she keeps."

Hermione's grip on her wand tightened. "Are you playing at something?" she demanded. "What did you do?"

" _Me_?" He eyed her wand apprehensively but spat out, " _I_ didn't do anything. You and your Potter were the ones who brought this upon yourselves -"

"I mean this!" She swept the scope of the corridor with her hand. "What happened to it all?"

Had he responded strangely, like Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey with their "Hogwarts is still safe", Hermione knew she would have felt even more frightened. But Zabini seemed to know exactly what terrifying alterations had happened to Hogwarts, by the brief astonished look on his face as he took in the intact corridor.

And when his disbelieving eyes landed on the quiet man next to McGonagall, Hermione knew her mind hadn't produced Albus Dumbledore out of her imagination after all. Blaise's mouth dropped open.

Professor McGonagall stepped up. "Mr. Zabini and Miss - Miss Granger, was it?"

Hermione flickered her eyes away from Zabini. "Yes," she said, picking up on her teacher's hesitance.

Zabini seemed to temporarily find his voice again, though she observed that he was still staring at Dumbledore with a strange look Hermione could not identify. "I wouldn't blame you for forgetting. She has been gone for quite a while."

"Gone from where?"

And _that_ made Blaise and Hermione stare openly at Minerva McGonagall, who still looked wary - but also genuinely perplexed.

"Professor?" said Hermione tentatively.

"Miss Granger, Mr. Zabini." Dumbledore finally stepped forward, his blue eyes fixed upon the two.

He had been silent up until now, but there was comprehension in his eyes that Hermione wanted to cling to. Dumbledore said slowly,

"I think that it would do well to explain _when_ you've come from as well as where."

Hermione stared at him. And then she looked at him, _really_ looked at him for the first time since she swam into consciousness, and saw that his hair was not yet completely grey, that there were not as many lines on his face, and that the weight in his eyes was not quite as heavy with the experience of two wizarding wars.

Slowly, slowly, she lifted a hand to her mouth, understanding. She looked at the clean corridor with a new light, noticed the evening sun again, saw the old style of McGonagall's and Pomfrey's robes, and trembled, her head spinning around and around. She felt light and dizzy and weighted down at the same time.

"Bloody hell…"

Hermione instinctively spun to the Slytherin sitting on the ground, and when his eyes met hers, she knew Zabini had met the same conclusion.

She sank to her knees, frozen in shock. She didn't understand. Questions raged through her mind at alarming paces, and she didn't understand why, why they were here, why Blaise suddenly looked so terrified, and why he was lifting his hands to his neck and yanking on something gold - a chain she knew well, from running her fingers over one just like it for her entire third year.

She knew what dangled at its end.

The seventh floor corridor was silent as Blaise reached pulled out a cracked gold hourglass, bent and broken. Hermione looked on in horror as a thin golden substance slipped between the gaps of his fingers.

The fine sand from the Time Turner hit the stone floor with an air of finality, as if proud to announce the arrival of two disbelieving time travelers.

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 **It's here. I have been working on this story since November 2014, and though I am not done with it, I want to begin to share this story which is dear to my heart. Please let me know what you think of it so far :) I am so excited!**

 **xo Summer**


	2. Dumbledore's Solution

**Thank you so much for the positive feedback :) I am super excited that you guys are enjoying this so far! This chapter's a bit long. Hope you enjoy!**

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"You have come at a rather inconvenient time, I'm afraid. Though I'm sure you had no choice in the matter," said Albus Dumbledore - the real, 1977, very much alive Albus Dumbledore.

Though they had been in the office for ten minutes already, explaining bits about who they were and where they'd come from, part of Hermione still wanted nothing more than to reach across the desk and verify that the man she, Harry, and Ron had sought so many answers from was _alive_. He still looked so much like his future self that she could hardly keep herself from asking him if they'd done everything they had to, if killing Nagini was all they had left to do, if what they had done was right so far -

"Today is August 31," Dumbledore continued, his eyes appraising her as if he could sense the turmoil in her mind but not understand it. "Tomorrow is the day that term begins and students arrive."

Blaise Zabini frowned as he fingered the broken glass on his Time Turner. The light from Dumbledore's lamp shone on the gold chain, illuminating the scratches and dried blood on the surface. "I should hope I'll be gone before that matters."

Hermione bit her lip. Though she agreed with him on that account, she was uncertain whether they could even get back in the first place, let alone in the next few minutes.

She pulled her eyes away from Zabini's Time Turner. "There _is_ a way to get back at all, isn't there?"

The headmaster looked from her to Blaise thoughtfully. He was putting a lot of trust in their words, Hermione had realized. To believe two teenagers' story about time travel when she'd been rambling on about Death Eaters in Hogwarts before - how was he to know he hadn't caught the Death Eaters themselves? Of course (and she glanced at Zabini from the corner of her eye) it was quite possible he had.

"Yes. There is a way," said Dumbledore. Hermione let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. "Though it will be very difficult, especially since there are the two of you."

"Of course," Hermione agreed. She hesitated. "The only thing I still don't get is… why I got sent back when the Time Turner was clearly only around _his_ neck."

She glanced at Zabini, who lifted his head to meet his eyes with hers. She flicked her gaze away from him, uncomfortable, but not before she looked down at his left hand. His torn sleeve covered his forearm.

Dumbledore watched them curiously. "Miss Granger, how far from Mr. Zabini were you at the time of the incident?"

"I came from the side with the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy," said Hermione.

"And you, Mr. Zabini?"

"The opposite side. Closer to the staircase."

"So that makes even less sense why I should have been sent here." She frowned at him.

"And you are therefore accusing me of sabotaging you."

She lifted her chin. "Don't make assumptions."

Zabini's eyes flashed. "I am not if they're true."

"I have a perfectly acceptable reason to question how I've gotten here," she snapped, before turning back to Dumbledore.

"And how is it that we are going to get back? I think there's only been one account, ever, of traveling back in time for more than a few hours, and the witch ended up wiping out 25 families in the village she'd stayed at before dying herself."

"Quite right, Miss Granger," said Dumbledore appreciatively.

"I suppose that means we're going to die and take everyone in this era with us if we attempt to return?" asked Blaise sarcastically. He had returned to staring at his Time Turner, and kept winding the chain through his long fingers.

Dumbledore smiled. "That won't be necessary. I have mentioned that I know a spell that can return you to your own time. However, it is very dangerous and complicated. I trust you can imagine the risks with executing this spell."

When neither interrupted him, he added, "Once the spell is put into effect and both of you leave this time period for your own, every person you have made contact here will forget you. That is, a void in their memory will be left in the place of your existence. It is imperative that you remember this, for you must be certain not to attach yourselves to anyone in particular while you are here."

A lump grew in Hermione's throat. She had already done the math - it had been the first, nearly subconscious thing she'd done after finding out what year it was - and knew 1977 was the last year Harry's parents attended Hogwarts. Which meant that Lily and James Potter were among the students arriving at Hogwarts tomorrow.

She shifted in her seat. "Professor. Is the memory of the time traveller also affected when returning?"

"I'm afraid I do not know. There has been no clear account of this spell being performed. It is, as I said, very dangerous."

"Even if it does, I don't see how that should matter. I, for one, wouldn't mind forgetting about this." Zabini sat up before Hermione could voice her opinion, which was the precise opposite. Presented with the opportunity to meet Harry's parents, Hermione knew for certain she wanted to retain her memory, if only to tell Harry about his parents and what they were like in person when she returned.

Harry and Ron. She flinched as thoughts of them returned. "How long will it take before we return?"

She expected him to say a few days at most, a night at least. Instead, Dumbledore's reply was, "I would expect about two months."

He saw the shocked expressions on their faces and said gently, "You are both aware of the risks, Miss Granger, Mr. Zabini. Time is not to be meddled with, but spells that control the flow of time go far beyond meddling. If our spell were to go wrong, so would the course of history. To ensure that does not happen, I must make necessary preparations. And these will take longer than I know either of you wish."

"And what do you propose we do while we wait?" Zabini challenged. "Wonder how many of our friends have dropped dead in these hallways?"

Hermione could not help but draw in a quick breath at that. She shot him a sharp look. Neither had mentioned the battle of Hogwarts or Voldemort yet, but she was sure Dumbledore had surmised as much from her reaction in the seventh-floor corridor. Yet what he said was true, and something she had been fearing every second she sat comfortably in this office.

Dumbledore indeed looked pale as he observed Blaise and Hermione. When he spoke, his voice was heavy with remorse. "I am sorry. If there was a faster way, I would certainly do my best to find it - but alas, there is none. I hope it is some comfort to you, though, that according to the spell, you will return to nearly the exact moment you have left your own time. No time will have passed since you left."

He sighed. "Meanwhile, as I have said, term begins tomorrow. It would be almost impossible to permanently hide you from the students, and a hassle besides. On the other hand, relocating you outside of Hogwarts could be an idea, but it would serve us well to keep your presence as quiet as possible. I am open to any ideas you might have, but frankly the only option I find viable is that you both continue life here as students at Hogwarts."

His suggestion was followed by a thick silence.

 _Continue_ life here? Hermione tensed. The idea that after living in a tent for the past six months, trekking across half of England, being captured at Malfoy Manor, caught within inches of the Dark Lord, and then coming back to Hogwarts to see it all but crumble under the attack by the Death Eaters - the idea of returning to something so ordinary as a classroom was impossible.

"This may be a difficult task, but it is entirely your choice," Dumbledore said gently, drawing her back to the moment. "There are alternatives."

And yet…

Her other options were even worse. If she spent every day of the next two months sitting around doing nothing but drowning herself in thoughts about Harry, Ron, and Voldemort, how would she expect to stay sane? It would be easier and faster if she could drown herself in studies instead, and perhaps even get the chance to meet Harry's parents.

She turned slowly to look at Zabini and was startled to see that he was already watching at her carefully. A knowing smirk spread onto his face as he observed her, and he dipped his head mockingly towards her before turning to Dumbledore.

"Granger's decided," he said simply. "As have I."

The headmaster nodded heavily. "Thank you. I may now ask, what year are the two of you in?"

"Seventh year, sir."

As Hermione said this, she frowned a little. In all technicality, she was still between the end of her sixth year and start of seventh. She had never been a seventh year at all. And now she would have the chance to be - but without her two best friends by her side.

"And what about your Houses?"

From their seats, Hermione and Blaise made sharp eye contact.

"Gryffindor," she blurted out at the same time he shot, "Slytherin."

The headmaster simply nodded, leading Hermione to believe that he had suspected as much. "Alas, I would prefer to be able to honor your Sorting; however, I hope you will agree with me that it would be best to keep you both in the same House, for multiple reasons."

"Oh, bloody hell," Zabini muttered.

"Is there any House in particular that you would choose between both of you?"

Immediately, Hermione hardened her eyes at Zabini. He kept her glare with a steady one of his own, and she pursed her lips. She refused to be put into Slytherin, and shuddered at the thought of a young Parkinson, a young Goyle, a young _Snape_ …

Zabini eventually snorted. "If I may say so, Granger, you're fighting a losing battle here."

"What do you mean?" she snapped. "Clearly -"

"Clearly," he continued loudly, "you're not going to have the guts to keep away from your Chosen One's parents."

Her mouth dropped open.

"Yes, I have figured it out by now." He narrowed his eyes at her. "And I'm unconvinced that you could stay away from them, Granger."

She clamped her mouth shut and frowned at him. "I highly doubt you are in any position to make assumptions about me."

"Please. You're the kind of weak-willed zealot -"

She spluttered. " _Weak-willed zealot_?"

"- who can't resist your desires. You wouldn't last two days after seeing them, especially since you'd be living with his mother herself."

"I _could,_ " she snapped. "What I couldn't do is last two days surrounded by people like you who like to torment innocent people."

"So you'd rather risk changing history by staying in Gryffindor? Low, Granger -"

"I'm saying I'd rather resist my desires than spend a second surrounded by people like you in Slytherin!"

" _Really? Your mistake then, Miss Granger_."

For a moment, Hermione stared at Blaise. But he seemed just as taken aback as she was by the new addition of a low, scratchy voice.

Both of their heads turned to the shelf beside Dumbledore's desk. Their eyes landed on a brimmed black hat with its mouth stretched open, looking just as tattered and worn as it had when Hermione'd last seen it at the Sorting in her sixth year.

"Ah, my dear Sorting Hat. I take it that you're getting ready for tomorrow?" Having conversations with the hat was evidently an annual activity for the headmaster.

" _Naturally. I haven't spoken in 355 days, yet I'm expected to shout my brim off all night tomorrow. And stop staring at me like that, Miss Granger. Gawp at me all you'd like, but don't look at me as if I cannot see you._

" _Now, where was I? Ah. Yes, it would be your mistake to give up Slytherin so easily, Miss Granger. Especially with a pretense such as yours_."

She glanced at Dumbledore, who was listening to the conversation very carefully. "I don't understand. Sir," she added. The Hat was, after all, a highly powerful artifact from the past.

" _Sir!_ _Oh I like that!_ " The hat cackled before resuming. " _You_ are _talking about which House you and Mr. Zabini will temporarily stay in, aren't you? Well, I'm telling you not to brush off Salazar Slytherin's House as if it is dirt on your shoes_."

Zabini coughed in appreciation as Hermione, taken aback, argued, "It's not the House, it's the people they grow up to be!"

" _Hermione Granger, can you really not see how wrong you are?"_ The hat sounded almost amused as it said, " _I suppose this is why I put you in Gryffindor even with your cleverness… Brains Rowena would have been proud of, but courage and stubbornness that Godric would have loved. Pride as well, I see._ "

Brains that Rowena would have been proud of. Courage that Godric would have loved. Hermione was jolted with a sense of déjà-vu as she replayed the words in her head. She was certain. Six years ago, the Sorting Hat had whispered these exact words into her ear at her Sorting.

She gasped and opened her mouth to ask the Hat if that was just a coincidence, or if he somehow remembered her; but he had already begun to address Zabini.

" _And here we have none other than Mr. Blaise Zabini! Curious as a child but even more so now… Nerve of a Gryffindor, cunning of a Slytherin, wit of a Ravenclaw. Still as Hufflepuff-less as ever, though, I see. Quite a shame._ "

There was a flicker of surprise on Zabini's face at these words. "You -" he began, but Dumbledore said,

"My dear Sorting Hat, I must ask: How is it that you can recall Miss Granger and Mr. Zabini if they aren't due to be Sorted for sixteen years?"

" _My dear Dumbledore_ ," the hat mimicked, " _time is of no relation to me. Godric, bless his soul, made certain when he created me that I wouldn't be bound as humans are to the confinements of time._ "

The implications were really too tantalizing to ignore.

"So you can tell us what's happening in the future, then? You could see everything if you tried?" Hermione asked eagerly. Her mind was flooded with images of Harry and Ron, Ginny and Luna.

The hat laughed. " _What do you think I am? No, I cannot reach into the future and simply grasp what is happening. Time, Miss Hermione Granger, is susceptible to change. I can only remember what has already happened and catch glimpses of what is to come. Although I must admit, even if I could do what you really want to ask of me, I wouldn't. I assure you, it's much more amusing to keep such information to myself."_

She opened her mouth to protest, but the Hat beat her to it.

" _Enough with the questions. Hermione Granger, you have realized your mistake? Good. Your way forward must be clear, then._ "

With that, the Hat fell silent.

"Quite brilliant, isn't he?" said Dumbledore fondly as he straightened the Hat on the shelf.

"At any rate, it's more sensible than you, Granger," said Blaise as he pocketed his Time Turner and sat up in his chair.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Blaise's lips curved into a smug smile. "It can see that Slytherin is obviously your best bet right now. You can deny it all you want, but I know you know that you wouldn't be able to resist the first opportunity to meet the Boy Who Lived's parents. The problem would solve itself if you went to Slytherin, the one House Gryffindors can't stand."

"And they have good reasons not to," Hermione snapped. She turned to Dumbledore, who was sitting back in his chair. "Professor -"

He removed his spectacles and looked at her, not unkindly. "Miss Granger, I understand that Slytherin isn't your natural House, but the Sorting Hat has been a trusted object of Hogwarts since Godric Gryffindor himself created it. If we trust its judgement at the first year Sorting Ceremony, then I think you will see that it would be in our interest to trust it now as well."

She opened her mouth to protest, but then bit her lip leaned back in half-hearted acquisition. She glowered as Blaise began to drum his fingers on the side of his chair.

Dumbledore clapped his hands at her silent consent. "Thank you for your flexibility, Miss Granger. I am sure that Mr. Zabini can show you to the dungeons. The password should be 'Salazar Slytherin', as it always is during the summer. I will have the necessary clothes and items sent up to the seventh-year dormitories, and Professor Slughorn will bring the both of you school supplies.

"I will, of course," Dumbledore continued at Hermione and Blaise's sharp looks, "be informing the teachers that you two are not actual exchange students, but no one except for me, Professor McGonagall, and Madam Pomfrey will know the truth. Students will be told a different story; they will believe that both of you have been homeschooled up to this point.

"Meanwhile, I will work on the preparations for the spell. There is one more thing that I must tell you about the spell. I don't think this will be a problem, but all the same…" He sighed.

"The spell will only return what came. It will not, for example, accept clothing or people of this era. Neither will it return only a portion of what came, meaning that _both_ you, Mr. Zabini, and you, Miss Granger, must be present when I perform the spell. Therefore, I trust that you two will look after each other here if necessary?"

Blaise scoffed while Hermione said stiffly, "I'm sure there's no need for that. Both of us are eager to return."

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "You may go to your dorms and rest, then. Since it's so late, I will have dinner sent up to your rooms."

"Thank you," said Hermione as she stood. "And if there's anything that we could do to make the preparations go by faster -" she added hopefully.

"I will tell you immediately," Dumbledore promised, nodding as they turned and left the office.

* * *

As the two time travelers made their way silently down the staircase and into the corridor that led toward the Entrance Hall, Hermione wondered how it was possible that this Hogwarts from the past looked the precise same as the one in the future. Every suit of armor, every torch flickering, looked exactly as it would if she was in her own time, and she'd missed it, this past year. The overall effect of this was eerie and comforting at the same time.

Hermione absentmindedly ran a hand over her cleaned arms. Madam Pomfrey had kindly fixed up and washed her wounds, burns, and singed hair before they'd gone up to Dumbledore's office, and it felt heavenly to be clean again, although her and Zabini's clothes were still dirty. They were the only indicators that the two had been warped here from a battlefield.

Her chest contracted at the thought of Ron and Harry. _Two months_ , she thought despondently. _Two months until I can see them, until I know they weren't hurt by that explosion…_

From behind her, Blaise's voice cut into her thoughts.

"I wonder - What would people think if they knew Hermione Granger was going to live the life of a Slytherin?"

"Two months, Zabini," she retorted, distractedly. "Hardly a lifetime, though I suppose it'll feel like an eternity if everyone's as irritating as you."

"Ouch. Surely you don't mean Potter's parents."

"James and Lily Potter did _good_ for the world," she said, turning around to stare at him evenly. "Even if they turn out to be irritating, at least there's that. I can't say the same for others."

He was raising his eyebrow at her, his handsome face housing a smirk - one that she was already beginning to recognize from the past hours that the strange turn of events had brought them together for. She had a feeling that that cool smirk would soon be the bane of her sanity.

"You have an exceedingly low opinion of Slytherins," Blaise observed.

"Within reason," she shot back.

"And you have a tendency to oversimplify. You're so quick to judge without knowing anything," he continued lightly. But his dark eyes were piercing as he said, "The Slytherin mind is what I know best, so do try not to taint it with what you only think it is like.

"Of course, it is natural to you since you're a Gryffindor." Blaise paused and gave her another smirk that she parried with a defiant glare of her own. "Rather, you _were_ one."

* * *

A rap alerted Albus to his office doors as he finished up a list that stretched from his desk to the ground. "Come in," he called.

Minerva stepped inside, brown hair pinned up as she stalked to his desk anxiously. "Well?" she demanded. "Poppy and I have been kept in suspense long enough. What are we going to do with them?"

Albus set his quill down gently and folded up the parchment. "They will be students here until they can return to their own time." He held a hand up as the Transfiguration professor opened her mouth to, likely, ask him why. "I trust them," he explained simply. "They are young and have been brought here by unlikely circumstances, and what little they have told me of their world - our future world - is heartbreaking. The least we can do is to help them to return and in the meanwhile, give them the comfort of what we can."

The silence in his room lasted for a minute, in which Minerva sank into a chair - the chair that the girl had sat in - and processed his words. At last, she said curtly, "Alright. You know that if you trust them, then I will as well. But what the girl said about the boy - that he was one of _them_ -"

"I admit that concerned me too. But Mr. Zabini showed to be no threat in here. And Poppy has informed me that no visible Mark could be found on his arm."

Minerva nodded. "I have heard that they are staying in the Slytherin dungeons. Have they both been Sorted there?"

Here Albus smiled, blue eyes twinkling in the light of his lamp. "In this era, yes. But I think you'd be pleased to know that Miss Granger is to be a Gryffindor in her time. Under your care."

"She did seem the type," the professor mused, before rising and nodding curtly at him. "Fine. I'll alert Poppy. I suppose you'll be telling the other teachers an alternate story?"

At his nod, she began to head toward the doors. But when she reached for the knob, Minerva hesitated and turned around. "Albus," she said quietly, her expression tight and worried, "You must have seen how both of them reacted to you. If they really are from the future -"

"Minerva," Dumbledore interrupted gently. "If anything, it is a comfort to me to know that I will have at least a decade or two to serve this school. Therefore, I will ask that you not bring this up again. We have learned things today that we never should have, and it will do no good to continue to speak of them."

The professor pressed her lips together in disapproval, but she nodded. "Good night, then," she murmured, letting herself out.

"Good night, Minerva."

The door shut gently behind her, and Albus looked down again at his list. There would be a great deal of preparation to be done for the spell to return Miss Hermione Granger and Mr. Blaise Zabini to their time, twenty years into the future. But he would do everything to ensure that they would be returned.

Somehow, he had the feeling that they were needed in their own time more than they were needed here.

* * *

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 **xo Summer**


	3. Loophole in Time

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* * *

The brand new Slytherin tie felt abnormally silky beneath her fingers as Hermione looped it around her neck.

She'd never noticed how ragged her own old school tie was; of course, that was to be expected from six years' worth of wear. Still, the silky new quality of the emerald green tie only added to Hermione's discomfort as she stared into the mirror and frowned upon the lack of red or gold in the reflection.

She sighed and left the bathroom, returning to the seventh year Slytherin girls dormitory.

Hermione gazed at the five wooden beds adorned with silky green sheets and whispery silver curtains. In two hours, she would be sharing this room with four other girls who would believe that she was an exchange student who had genuinely been Sorted into Slytherin. Would they accept her?, Hermione mused as she shrugged on a new set of robes. Or would they see through her green tie and notice her discomfort in the eerie dungeon, which was much colder than the Gryffindor Tower?

These thoughts were more to occupy than concern her. She had no intention to become close to the Slytherins, and anyway, she could hardly imagine spending more time in the Slytherin dungeons than, say, _anywhere else,_ where she wouldn't be surrounded on all sides by Slytherins.

Hermione grabbed her wand off her bedside table and leaned down to close her trunk. For the third time that day, she made certain that her dirty clothes and shoes from the future were still folded neatly in the corner. After doing so, she had no more reasons to stall; she reluctantly left the dormitory for the Welcoming Feast of 1977.

She had spent the earlier parts of the day trying to occupy her mind by researching time travelling in the library, or walking around to see the school she'd so missed; so she still hadn't got used to the murky green light of the Slytherin dungeons. Whilst the Gryffindor Tower was lit with light from the windows and from orange-yellow candles, lamps of emerald green hung from the ceiling of the dungeons and just barely illuminated the ground.

As she passed through the common room, Hermione's eyes drifted towards the windows that showed a fascinating view of the Black Lake and its inhabitants. She had to admit that the effect of the water was rather pretty; light from the sky above made watery reflections appear on the velvet couch in front of the fireplace. A more sinister detail that Hermione noticed about the common room as she walked through it was the large amount of _snakes_. Surely Gryffindor's lion wasn't displayed half as many times as Slytherin's snake was. The animal was carved on every torch and desk, stitched onto chairs and cushions. It found her on the posts of her bed, hems of the drapes, and even the taps on the sink. It reminded her sharply of the snake on the sink that led down to the Chamber of Secrets, where she and Ron had collected fangs from the carcass of the basilisk what seemed ages ago but was just yesterday…

 _Ron_ , she thought with a heavy heart as she touched the place where the exit was. Stone melted away beneath her palm like Slytherin's snakes did at the thought of her best friend, his red hair and vibrant blue eyes. Her thoughts slipped effortlessly to Harry, then to Ginny, then to the rest of the Weasleys - Fred, George, Bill, Charlie, even Percy.

Maybe time would not move in the future, but it was so easy to wonder what horrors Harry and Ron were seeing even as she was granted the vision of Albus Dumbledore and a beautiful Hogwarts again. It was easy to fear for their lives even though hers was endangered by time. It was even easier to want to return to the destructive battlefield rather than think about roaming the corridors of her Hogwarts for two peaceful months.

These thoughts made her heart heavy during the short walk to the Great Hall, where she was stopped outside the entrance by a familiar voice.

"Oh, you must be one of the exchange students!"

Hermione turned to see a short man making his way down the hall. She held her breath, recognizing her Charms professor before he came into her focus - though he looked extraordinarily young even with slightly graying hair. He smiled brightly up at Hermione.

"I'm Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher here at Hogwarts! Pleased to meet you - the Headmaster mentioned you at the staff meeting, he said you and the boy you came with were already here."

"Hello," she said, shaking his hand. She suddenly remembered seeing the future Flitwick running towards the Entrance Hall commanding a horde of metal knights behind him. Her throat became dry as she remembered to say, "I'm Hermione Granger."

"Well, don't just stand there, Miss Granger. Come in, the other students will be here any minute now."

He led her in the doors. Beyond them was an empty Great Hall, and she could spot a much younger Professor Sprout and Madam Pomfrey sitting at the staff table with a couple of other teachers she didn't recognize.

Perhaps she looked as overwhelmed as she suddenly felt, because Flitwick patted her arm and said, "Now, the Slytherin table is over there, just sit tight and wait for the students to come…"

He quickly glanced around before leaning in and adding, "I know you're not really an exchange student, Albus told us as much, but please do try to feel at home here."

He beamed at her so brilliantly that Hermione felt a rush of affection for her teacher. "Thank you," she whispered.

Flitwick left her to join the other teachers at the table, so Hermione made her way to the Slytherin table. It felt strange to be heading in the opposite direction than the Gryffindor table, and she glanced over her shoulder to look at the space she, Ron, and Harry usually sat at.

No sooner had she selected a seat did the doors open to admit Blaise, whom she had avoided coming into contact with all day. In fact, this was the first she'd seen of him since breakfast, and she rather wished that she could avoid seeing him for longer.

As he took the seat opposite of her, he looked at her tie and said charmingly, "Very Slytherin."

She ignored him.

Not more than half a minute later, Professor Slughorn entered the room, younger and slimmer than his future self. Days in the Potions dungeon flashed through Hermione's mind, and the memories ended with the final image of the Slytherin Head of House leading a group of students up the Grand Staircase to fight.

She and Blaise sat in silence for maybe three more minutes until the doors swung open once more. A young teacher with brown hair that Hermione didn't recognize strolled in and announced cheerfully, "The students are here!"

There came delighted cheers and even a few claps from the staff table, but these were soon drowned out by the voices of the approaching mass of students.

It was a different experience to know the students were coming but to not be among them. The voices started off as a distant hum, but as students drew closer and closer, the excited yelps of reunited friends and chatter about summer vacations gradually crescendoed until the noise broke through the oak doors of the Great Hall.

Hermione and Blaise watched as students poured into the Hall, separating as they made their way to their respective tables. The first few to reach the Slytherin table cast wondering glances at the two already seated, but soon Blaise and Hermione were hardly noticeable in the midst of the students seating themselves around them. This allowed Hermione to focus on the throng of people entering.

She searched faces to see maybe a shock of Lily Potter's long red hair or a head of familiar messy black hair, but it was very hard, because people kept moving around and blocking her view as she searched.

She was just beginning to wonder whether it was really possible to find Harry's parents now - when she'd been one of them in the crowd, she'd never realized how many students there actually _were_ \- when there was a sudden shout from within the group squeezing into the Hall.

"Aaaand we Marauders are back in business!"

Hermione stood before she realized what she was doing.

She craned her neck over the people at the Ravenclaw table in search for the source of the sound, her heart beating faster and faster.

She squinted as the crowd of students formed a wide berth around a few students. Was that a boy with long black hair she saw? That could be Sirius - Sirius used to have hair like that, she'd seen his pictures at Grimmauld Place!

And standing beside him, wearing those slightly faded robes - that was Remus, wasn't it? And there were two boys sprawled on the ground, laughing… She could see dark hair and a pudgy face...

Hermione felt her heart lurch. Her hand had flown to her mouth without her knowing it, and her body leaned forward subconsciously as she watched the boys with wide, disbelieving eyes.

Young Sirius was laughing like she'd never seen his older self laugh. Remus looked healthier and happier than she'd ever seen him, and James Potter, _James Potter_ , he was _alive_ , he was laughing, he was _here_! And he looked so much like Harry that Hermione felt tempted to run and throw her arms around him. But this was James Potter - no longer just a headstone with a Christmas wreath on it, a reminder of Harry's misfortune, but a real person, right in front of her. Harry's _father_ was just yards away from her… Hermione's mind spun dizzily and she sank back into her seat.

More students filled up the Slytherin table. A group of girls took their place on Hermione's left, giggling as they batted their eyelashes at Blaise. Hermione took no notice of them; her mind was floored with the image she was granted of the Marauders, alive, young, happy, not more than a hundred feet away from her.

A hush fell over the room as the doors opened again and Professor McGonagall led a group of first years into the hall. Hermione could not bring herself focus on the Hat's song or the Sorting Ceremony, although she desperately tried to, if only because this was like the Welcoming Feast that she, Harry, and Ron had missed for seventh-year.

Instead, she peered through the gaps between people's heads and tried to see the Gryffindor table across the room. Twice, she thought she spotted James or Remus, but heads kept moving, and her vision was obscured before she could get a good look.

The ceremony passed by quickly for Hermione. After the last student was sorted, Dumbledore stood at the center of the staff table. His arms spread wide in a welcoming gesture.

"Students, new and returning," he began pleasantly. Hermione at last gave up her fruitless attempts to see Harry's father again. "Welcome to another year of learning and enrichment at Hogwarts."

Students from all Houses cheered.

"Before we begin the feast, there are a couple announcements to be made. First, Professor Chung will no longer be teaching Astronomy due to unfortunate circumstances. Please welcome Professor Aurora Sinistra in his place. I trust you will all welcome her kindly."

Hermione felt shivers run up her arms as she saw yet another of her future teachers, young and waving to the clapping students.

Dumbledore waited for the clapping to die down before continuing, "We will also be welcoming two exchange students for a short period of time."

Whispering immediately broke out. Heads turned as people searched for unfamiliar faces, and the girls sitting next to Hermione said loudly, "Who are they?"

The headmaster put a hand up to quiet the hall. "Up to this point in time, they have both been homeschooled, but they will be joining us for a couple of months to experience boarding school. Both have already been Sorted into Slytherin as seventh-years. I hope that each of you will do your best to welcome Miss Hermione Granger and Mr. Blaise Zabini."

He gestured for them to rise, and Hermione felt every pair of eyes in the room rivet towards the Slytherin table where she and Blaise stood.

As she shifted and attempted to peer over his shoulder at the Gryffindor table, Blaise said out of the corner of his mouth, "Granger."

"What?" she asked distractedly, squinting at the students' faces in the sea of red and gold ties.

Zabini smirked knowingly as they sat down and she cast one more desperate peek across the room. "I did tell you that you wouldn't be able to resist."

Hermione immediately stopped craning her neck. Her cheeks flushed pink as she settled her affronted gaze on Zabini's smirking face.

He snorted like he knew exactly what she was thinking, and began to nonchalantly scoop food from the plates that had appeared all along the tables. Hermione did the same after sending him hard glare.

She had barely lifted her fork to her mouth when a girl sitting on Hermione's left leaned in over their plates of food. She widened her brown eyes and asked conversationally,

"So are you two relatives? Close friends, maybe?"

" _Relatives_?" Zabini choked on his mouthful of potatoes while the group of four girls eagerly stared at him for an answer. What they were really asking, Hermione deduced snippily based on what she'd learned from Lavender and Parvati, was if the girls should be concerned about having another female in the picture. Namely, her.

Not interested in appearing to be closer to Blaise than she would ever be, Hermione replied firmly, "No to both."

A girl with straight brown hair flashed her friends a hopeful smile that Hermione (and she was sure, Blaise as well) did not fail to catch.

"Did you know each other before you came to Hogwarts?"

"Yes. Vaguely," she said under the watchful gaze of the Slytherin girls. She pretended to be immersed in cutting up her piece of turkey in hopes that they wouldn't ask any more questions.

But of course, they persevered. "Did you know each other while you were home schooled, then?"

Blaise regained his composure then, and Hermione distastefully watched as he laughed. The sound grated on Hermione's nerves but made one of the girls blush. Blush. At the sound of a laugh!

"Vaguely, as Granger said. But enough questions about us! What are your names?"

As he made flirtatious conversation with the delighted girls, Hermione inwardly snorted and added _charmer_ to the growing list of Blaise Zabini's unflattering characteristics.

And despite the fact that he acted more like an arrogant schoolboy than one of Voldemort's followers, number one on that list was the likely possibility that he was a Death Eater.

Her fork clanged onto her plate as a sudden, _horrible_ thought occurred to her. Zabini had been in the corridor when the wall had blown up. Hermione'd assumed that something from the outside had caused the explosion, but what if it hadn't?

Her eyes fixated on Zabini's face across the table. _I was on the opposite side, closer to the staircase…_ It would have been easy to send a well-aimed jinx towards the wall to make it explode. He would have been able to dive out of the way if he'd positioned himself cleverly enough… Why hadn't she thought of this before? She hadn't thought about what he, a Death Eater, had been _doing_ in that corridor.

What he, a Death Eater, was capable of doing to Fred, Percy, Harry, Ron, herself, even the two other Death Eaters in the corridor.

Her realization dimmed the noise of 1977's Hogwarts students and the light from candles in the Great Hall. Hermione could only think about the person who sat across from her, now laughing. He hadn't been wearing a mask, she reminded herself. But some of the Death Eaters had taken theirs off when the battle started. His robes had been as torn as hers, she remembered. But all that could've meant was that he fired the spell and hadn't gotten away in time…

Her previous annoyance with his charming act was forgotten in comparison with the sudden apprehension and tendrils of dark suspicion of the person who was sitting across from her, smiling, as if his Time Turner hadn't brought them both from the ruins of a corridor he himself might have blown up. The fact that he may not have been to blame for the explosion seemed muted in comparison to the rather large chance that he had.

Her hands curled into fists at her side.

"Forgive me for saying so, but you look rather... upset. Are you okay?"

Hermione glanced to the right, where a Slytherin boy leaned across the empty seat beside her and was watching her carefully.

"I'm fine," Hermione said shortly, returning her glare to Zabini.

Yet something about the boy beside her nagged at her brain, and she turned to look at him again.

He was delicately raising one dark eyebrow at her sharp retort. "Alright then, exchange student." He began to sidle back to his place two seats away.

"Wait a moment." Hermione narrowed her eyes as she observed his dark hair and his angled face. There was something about those grey eyes…

She could not figure out why he looked so familiar until she spotted the silver watch he was wearing. It was a regal thing, and carved into the pure silver was the tiny phrase: _Toujours Pur_. The words resonated in her memory. The image of a small sign and a gold locket wove its way to her mind and Hermione gasped.

Obviously, Regulus Black had no idea that she had just figured out who he was, and he gave her a little frown. She stared back at him perhaps a little too disbelievingly, Zabini temporarily forgotten.

"You _are_ okay, aren't you?" he asked rather warily. She could hardly blame him.

"Yes." She glanced behind him to see a group of rowdy boys roaring with laughter at a joke.

Regulus nodded slowly, clearly disbelieving, and extended a hand. "Well, I'm Regulus Black."

"Hermione Granger," she said, taking his hand.

It was the first physical contact she had with someone in this time era, and the weight of being in the past and meeting and sitting with Regulus Black, whose entire future she knew and had heard about years after his _death_ , never felt more surreal.

"I know," Regulus was saying. He shifted so that he was sitting more comfortably next to her. "I just thought I ought to give a proper greeting."

She cleared her throat and nodded.

"Anyway, your surname's Granger, you said? Haven't heard that family name." He said this casually, but Hermione swept her gaze over his calculating eyes and knew at once what he was really asking beneath his polite demeanor.

Her suspicions about the conduct of the Slytherin House confirmed, Hermione immediately pursed her lips. She arched an eyebrow at him and began smoothly, "Well, you probably wouldn't have, seeing as I'm a -"

"A halfblood," a deep voice cut in.

* * *

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 **Thanks again :)**

 **xo Summer**


	4. Blood and Prejudice

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* * *

Hermione almost cracked her neck as she spun to face Blaise. She hadn't realized he'd even been listening into her conversation, and the suspicion she'd been feeling before resurfaced as she shot daggers at him for answering in her place.

"Really?" Regulus arched an eyebrow and turned to Hermione. "What are your parents, then?"

With the attention of Regulus, Zabini, and the girls he'd been talking with on Hermione, the word _Muggles_ sat on the tip of her tongue. Regulus's and the girls' eyes were fixed upon her face inquisitively, wondering, she supposed, whether she was worthy or not to be in their presence.

On the other hand, Blaise stared at her calmly, curiously, as if enjoying a show on the television.

She narrowed her eyes at him; he simply smirked at the predicament he thought had gotten her out of.

If she cared, maybe she would go along with his comment. But since second year, after she survived being Petrified by the basilisk because she was a muggleborn, Hermione had never let anyone else try to judge her based on blood status. She could ignore stray comments, hold in her anger, but this was the one thing that crossed the line of her tolerance. Besides, whether the Slytherins accepted her or not was not a priority for Hermione. As far as she was concerned, she had no reason to care whether she was liked by the House she despised anyway.

"I'm a muggleborn," Hermione therefore said flatly. She glared at Blaise before eyeing the dark-haired boy next to her. She wanted Regulus Black (and now one of his friends, who was sitting beside Blaise and leaning forward to listen) to understand that she was Muggleborn and proud of it. "My parents are both dentists."

Regulus recoiled, though she was pretty sure he had no idea what a dentist was. His face twisted into a melanged expression of disgust and surprise. While he seemed to be temporarily rendered speechless, the brawny boy that sat across from him asked loudly, "And you got Sorted into _Slytherin_?"

Hermione turned her gaze to him, lifting her chin defensively. She was not afraid to say that she was a muggleborn, but to deny that she'd been put into Slytherin would risk people finding out the truth about Hermione and Blaise. That, at least, was worth the lie, though she internally convulsed.

"Obviously," she said haughtily.

The boy's eyes instantly went cold. "How did a _mudblood_ even discover Hogwarts?"

"Every student is given the option of being home schooled when receiving their Hogwarts letter," she replied instantly. "Muggleborn or not."

He narrowed his eyes at her, as if trying to discern whether she was lying or not. Finally, he shook his head and said with a humorless quirk of a smile, "You're going to wish you stayed at home, Muggleborn."

He turned to Blaise, who met his stare with one of his own. "And you?" he asked presumptuously. "Zabini, was it?"

"That's right."

"Happen to be related to Elena Zabini? She graduated a few years back."

Blaise seemed to freeze for a moment before saying smoothly, "She's a cousin."

The other boy nodded appreciatively, his features relaxing as he clapped Blaise on the back. "Good Pureblood family. Almost as old as the Blacks here, eh Reg?"

Regulus was still watching Hermione with what appeared to be disgust.

He tore his eyes away and contemplated Zabini before reaching across the table to shake his hand. A satisfied smile surfaced as Blaise obliged, and he laughed a little.

"Older than yours, Parkinson."

Hermione observed this exchange with grim acceptance. Her unflattering suspicions about Slytherin were confirmed already. All this talk about family bloodlines and whose blood was purer than whose was just a way to justify social standings in the Slytherin world, just as she had imagined. And Hermione never expected the Slytherins to accept her as a muggleborn (neither did she care for them to), but it had just taken _three words_ for Zabini to be admitted into the inner group of Slytherins.

She was disgusted.

Hermione turned back to her plate and willed the Welcoming Feast to end faster. She wanted to escape the crawling presence of these Slytherins who could not think in terms of anything but blood.

As if answering her plea, Dumbledore stood at the staff table and cleared his throat. Slowly, the noise petered out, and when the vast room had gone silent, the headmaster said, "I hope that was a fulfilling dinner for all of you. There is nothing better than a large meal to end the day. And now, you may all go to your common rooms to rest for the night with these final words from me: Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus!"

"Never tickle a sleeping dragon," Hermione muttered under her breath as she rose from her seat.

After glancing at the Gryffindor table one last time, she set off before anyone (namely Zabini or Sirius's younger brother) could detain her.

Yet she was stopped on her way out by a gentle tap on her arm. She pursed her lips and turned; her impression of Slytherins was already cemented for the night.

"You're one of the new students, right?" asked a tall boy with brown hair. She saw that he wore a green Prefect badge on his robes.

He smiled at her after she nodded slowly. "I'm Adrian Greengrass, seventh year Slytherin prefect. If you have any questions during your stay here, you can ask me or Natalie Farley over there."

"Thanks," she said reflexively. She looked in the direction he was pointing, at a girl who had gorgeous brown hair and an impish smile that reminded her of Ginny.

"Anyway, the password's 'Giant Squid'. Tribute to the mister outside our dungeons." He winked at her as she nodded and spun toward the doors. He was acting kind to her now, she would give him that, but by the time it spread around that she wasn't a pureblood or even a half-blood, he wouldn't be offering her any more help.

As Hermione made her way towards the Grand Staircase, a group of Gryffindor boys ran past her, hooting as they clamored up the stairs. Her heart skipped a beat for a moment and she stopped in her tracks.

But when she took a good look at their backs, there were six boys in the group instead of four, and none of them had Sirius's long black hair which she felt she could recognize anywhere.

She hesitated as she reached the Grand Staircase herself. To get to the Slytherin dungeons, she had to go down the stairs, and if she did, she'd be forced to lose sight of the passage up to the Tower. And Hermione desperately wanted one more glance of Harry's parents, or Sirius, or Remus.

She glanced over her shoulder to see if she might be able to spot the Marauders in the crowd, but she was instead met with the sight of Zabini, Regulus, and the rest of the group of boys exiting the Great Hall and heading toward the Staircase.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake," Hermione muttered under her breath, and, casting a final longing glance at the staircase going up to the Gryffindor Tower, she started down the staircase to the dungeons.

Zabini's increasingly infuriating voice drifted into her mind. _I did tell you that you wouldn't be able to resist_ …

She clenched her teeth together and though of how he had been grinning and buddying up with Regulus Black and Aaron Parkinson over a single name. Maybe it would be difficult for her to resist the Gryffindors of this era. But seeing him already on the way to acquainting himself with all these Slytherins, Blaise was sure as hell a hypocrite if he thought her _weak-willed._

* * *

Hermione woke up an hour earlier than she normally did at school, though it was hard to tell by the lighting what time it was; the murky waters outside the windows obliterated any chance of seeing the color of the sky above.

The months she, Harry, and Ron had spent on the run had changed Hermione's sleep cycle to the extent that she had again woken up at two a.m. and five a.m., ready to take the shift outside the tent she no longer lived in. Yet even as Hermione lay wide awake in the dim light of the chamber at her normal waking time, it was difficult to force herself out of bed. The first night in this time, she'd fallen asleep immediately after hitting the bed, so Hermione hadn't noticed the silkiness of the sheets or the comfort of the mattress. She had not fully realized that the Hogwarts bed was nothing short of a miracle.

It took the fleeting thought of Harry and Ron, and the guilt accompanied with it, to force herself to throw off the heavenly covers and drearily head to the bathroom. When she came out ten minutes later, dressed for the first day of class, she packed her book bag quietly as to not wake her roommates.

Hermione had met the four seventh year girls last night: Ava Lavery, Natalie Farley the prefect, Meredith Chen, and Rebecca Dawling.

They were tolerable at least, especially since they didn't know her blood status yet, and Hermione was happy to find out that they didn't spend as much time questioning about bloodlines than the male Slytherins evidently did. They had not once asked whether Hermione was a pureblood or not, or perhaps they'd simply assumed.

Instead, their eager questions were directed on the subject of Blaise Zabini.

"I'm not very close to him," Hermione had told them, all the whilst thinking about what lay beneath the sleeve of his left forearm. "You'd get better answers from asking him yourself."

When she had indeed offered nothing flattering about him, they'd turned to the discussion of boys in general. They were rather like Lavender and Parvati, Hermione thought; she supposed whether they were Slytherin or Gryffindor, girls had to be the same in some ways. Regardless, Hermione had never been interested in gossip, and had politely declined their offer to list the most available Slytherin boys in the school. Her final impression of them had been that they were rather vapid Slytherin girls that lived less up to their House title than say, Pansy Parkinson.

Yet as Hermione slung her bag over her shoulder and gazed at the girls in their beds, she couldn't help but feel as if there was something beneath her roommates' insipid gossip and girlish appearances that they were deliberately hiding from her.

Several times, she had caught Meredith and Natalie exchanging glances while Hermione spoke. She had definitely heard them murmuring about something other than boys when Hermione had excused herself to go to the bathroom.

But when she'd returned, they had continued their frivolous conversation where they left it, even though Rebecca and Meredith had moved to join Ava and Natalie on their beds, leaving an obvious gap between the group of girls and Hermione on her bed.

It was strange, and she contemplated this for a minute before shaking her head and turning towards the door. The female language was not as inate for Hermione as maybe it ought to have been. She would have time to figure it out later, if she ever felt inclined to in the days to come.

 _Two months_ , she reminded herself as she left the empty Slytherin common room. She still had two months left before she could return to Harry and to Ron.

The Great Hall was almost completely empty when she entered it at 6:45 in the morning, but Hermione glanced at the Gryffindor table reflexively. Though she knew better than to expect that the Marauders and Lily Potter would conveniently be here where she could possibly speak to them without suspicion, she was still disappointed to see the empty seats at the table.

With a sigh, she made her way to the Slytherin table and took a seat near the front.

Usually, the only ones who sat closest to the staff table were the first-years, more engrossed in taking in Hogwarts than trying to be out of hearing range of the teachers. Here, Hermione would be able to eat in peace without having to sit through another headache-inducing conversation with older Slytherins. First-years, after all, whether they were Gryffindor or Slytherin, were bound to be more interested in their first day at Hogwarts than in an exchange student who did not mind being alone.

Hermione tugged one of her new textbooks from her bag and began to read to distract herself from the lack of Ron's jokes as she ate. She paid little attention to the slowly filling Great Hall, pausing only occasionally to look at the doors in search of certain Gryffindors.

She didn't notice, then, the person who took the seat opposite of her until he gently tapped the corner of her book.

"Morning," said Adrian Greengrass the prefect, grinning slightly at her jolted expression. He helped himself to some eggs as she stared uncomprehendingly at him. "Hermione, right? Sleep well last night?"

Hermione's lips turned into a cautious frown. "Yes, I did."

"Good. You don't mind if I join you, do you? You seemed rather lonely by yourself here, and it didn't look as if you were talking with the first years."

She lifted her head, surprised to see that the Great Hall had filled considerably from the last time she looked up. Glancing directly around her, she saw that her predictions had been correct; except for Adrian Greengrass, the seats were filled with young students who were marveling at the sight of the sunrise on the dome of the Great Hall.

She turned back to him, and was slightly taken aback at the warm smile he was giving her. Hermione cleared her throat and thought she should offer some explanation for her stoic appearance. He _was_ being rather polite, after all. "I was reading."

"I can see. You must really be into Transfiguration."

She smiled, without thinking. "It's fascinating, but I have to say Ancient Runes is my favorite subject."

"Are you taking the class here?" He grinned when she nodded. "Excellent, I've been looking for a fellow Slytherin partner for that class. The only other Slytherins who take Ancient Runes are Natalie and Meredith, but they always partner up on their own…"

It was surprisingly easy to talk to the prefect, once she allowed herself to be less than icy around him. He somehow reminded her of the deceased Cedric Diggory, in looks and personality.

As they continued to converse, Hermione tried to remember if Adrian's children were similar to their father, who appeared to be more intelligible and considerate with every second she spoke to him. She knew that Daphne Greengrass was in her year, but Hermione had never spoken with her before.

She and Adrian had just begun a fascinating discussion about the connection between Astronomy and Transfiguration when a group of older Slytherin students slipped into the seats beside Hermione and Adrian.

Adrian welcomed them comfortably. Judging from the ease in which he greeted them, they were his friends.

Hermione cast a critical eye over the four boys currently sitting down, wondering whether they were more similar to their prefect friend or to Aaron Parkinson and Regulus Black. She continued to eat stiffly, eyeing the boys carefully as one of them began,

"You just missed it, Greengrass."

"There was a group of Puffs coming down the stairs, and Thomas charmed it so that the stairs grew slippery."

"You should have seen it -"

"They slid everywhere, one almost swung himself off the staircase -"

The Slytherins crowed appreciatively and Hermione, who listened to them with growing disapproval, quickly finished her plate. She put her book back into her bag and stood.

"Excuse me," she muttered, and for all they were guffawing, Hermione doubted anyone but Adrian heard her - at least until a hand latched onto her wrist.

A boy with short dark hair and a square jawline peered up at her. "Oi. You're one of those exchange students, aren't you?"

"Evidently," she said. It came out much more biting than could be overlooked, and the boy raised his eyebrow at her.

One of the other boys smirked and whispered something to the boy sitting next to him. The two began to chuckle under their breaths.

The one with a scar on his left cheek leered at her and said in a rather loud voice, "So you're the Mudblood."

Hermione, affronted, nearly rolled her eyes. Had Zabini told him already? The boy smiled satisfactorily at her, as if waiting for her to absorb the reactions from the other Slytherins at this accusation, but Hermione wasn't interested in any of them. Instead, Hermione glanced at the only Slytherin to counter her expectations so far, and wondered if he would live up to the Slytherin attitude and turn on her with this new piece of information.

But Adrian's face betrayed no emotion other than surprise as he turned his gaze to her. "Are you really?"

"Yes. What of it?" She arched an eyebrow at the smirks forming on the Slytherins' face in an effort to mask the building anger in her stomach. She wrenched her arm out of the Slytherin boy's grasp, causing surprise, then annoyance, to lace across his features.

"Just that we Slytherins don't appreciate mudbloods tainting our House," he responded roughly. "Even if it is just an exchange student."

"So stay out of our way," continued a rather large Slytherin who, when Hermione turned to him, looked so alike to Crabbe that she nearly dropped her jaw. "We might go easy on you."

Her posture stiffened, partly for his words and partly because she just remembered coughing up ashy air from her lungs as she, Harry, Ron, Gregory Goyle, and Draco Malfoy had sat outside of the Room of Requirement and discovered that Vincent Crabbe was no longer with them. She stepped backwards, suddenly hyper-aware of the eyes on her, ringed with a mix of malice or amusement.

"Oi, Snape!"

Some of the gazes on her broke, and Hermione barely had time to let out a breath before the name "Snape" struck a minor chord in her heart. She turned her gaze, wide-eyed, to where one of the Slytherin boys was waving at a boy entering the Great Hall.

Hermione's breath caught as the boy walked closer. He was combing back his dark hair with his fingers, and only gave an emotionless nod at the Slytherin boys as he approached, a large bag that looked half his weight swaying from his shoulder. His robes looked slightly wrinkled, like he had pulled them out of the deepest part of his luggage and did care to straighten them out.

The boy's eyes scanned the table, and settled on the only empty seat nearby - the one Hermione had just vacated and was currently standing in front of. His eyes raised from the seat to Hermione's face, where they cast over her features in mild disdain.

"Who are you?"

He received several answers from the Slytherins as Hermione opened her mouth and no sound came out: "The exchange student", "Mudblood", and "Proud little mudblood."

But Hermione could only flash back to how Harry had described Severus Snape, in cold blood, killing Albus Dumbledore. The greatest man of the century was killed by the thin, slightly disheveled boy in front of her now. Hermione involuntarily shuddered, and young Snape raised his eyebrows at her.

"Doesn't seem like much," he muttered, more to himself than the Slytherins who snorted at his comment.

He shouldered past her and promptly took his seat.

The Slytherins began to wildly recount their trick on the unsuspecting Hufflepuffs to Snape, who seemed almost bored by their talk. It seemed that playtime with the mudblood was over now; Hermione did not stick around to entertain them any longer.

Seeing young Professor Snape left an unsettled feeling along Hermione's skin. If meeting Regulus Black had seemed surreal, meeting young Snape cemented the absolute insanity of Hermione being here in this time. Hermione could _feel_ the wrongness of being here in 1977 along the hairs of her skin.

So when another hand suddenly grabbed her wrist on her rapid escape toward the Great Hall entrance, Hermione reflexively wrenched her arm away. She found herself staring down into Blaise Zabini's amused eyes.

"What?" she asked. She hoped she sounded exasperated and not half-crazed.

"My, my. No need to sound so rude." Zabini nonchalantly returned to his plate of food. "Sit down," he said as he forked a piece of egg.

She turned to leave, but he grabbed onto her arm again and pulled. "Seriously," he said under his breath.

Hermione glared at him, but looked up to see Regulus Black watching her from across the table. He did not look away when her eyes met his; rather, he narrowed his eyes even more. The suspicion in them was not lost on her, and judging from the overconfident nonchalance on Zabini's face, the Italian knew it, too.

She shakily sat, despite the voices in her head still ringing out, _Wrong, wrong, wrong._ She gingerly peeled off Zabini's long fingers from her arm. "Was there something you needed?" she muttered out of the corner of her mouth.

Zabini shook his head. She was struck with the desire to stomp on his foot from under the table. "Slughorn's passing out the schedules. Didn't want to have to hunt you down later."

Hermione immediately peered down the Slytherin table; sure enough, the younger version of Professor Slughorn was coming down the table with timetables in his arms.

She turned and frowned at Zabini as he cut his bacon into precise little rectangles. Though she didn't say anything, Blaise smiled out of the corner of his mouth. "What?" he asked innocently. "One exchange student can't help another?"

The dry amusement in his eyes was infuriating, but she just turned away and remained silent.

In the time she sat, waiting for Slughorn to reach them with their timetables, Hermione decided that Blaise was a character to be wary about, for obvious reasons and then also - _especially_ \- for the fact that she didn't know him at all. The fact was dawning on her now that they were sitting beside one another, supposedly in the same boat because of his Time Turner.

What did she know about him? She had had classes with him in Hogwarts, but for the life of her, could not remember much about specific Slytherins except for Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson. She'd never bothered to get to know Theodore Nott, Daphne Greengrass, Gregory Goyle, Blaise Zabini because there had been more important matters to focus on. All she could recall was that he'd been in the top five students of their class, and that Flitwick was fond of him. He was not on the Slytherin Quidditch Team. He had been in Slughorn's "Slug Club" because of his rich mother. Hermione could imagine other things about him - for example, a certain brand on his left forearm - but even with that, her extent of knowledge on Blaise Zabini was uncomfortably limited.

Hermione eyed Zabini with trepidation. Then she glanced down the table to see if Slughorn was near yet - and found him behind her, rustling through a sheaf of papers.

"Ah, Mr. Zabini and Miss Granger! I hope you are looking forward to your first day here." The young professor beamed at them and brandished two pieces of parchment. "Please look over your timetables. If you have any questions, you can ask me or your prefects. Ah, and here's yours, Mr. Black, and Mr. Newell -"

As soon as she grasped her roll of parchment, Hermione stood and said tersely, "Goodbye," which earned a snort from Zabini and no farewell in exchange.

She fled from the Great Hall with one last quick glance at the Gryffindor table, though she could not spot if any of the students' faces were Lily or James Potter's. Once in the Entrance Hall, Hermione slowed to a walk, relaxing a little now that she was no longer in a room full of unfamiliar students of this time. She unfurled her timetable.

The Slytherins had Charms first today, then Herbology. Her eyes skimmed over the rest of the schedule until she landed eagerly on Thursday morning, where it stated there was a dual class: Defense Against the Dark Arts with the Gryffindors. Pleased, Hermione carefully folded the parchment. She slipped it into her bag and, failing to notice the person coming down the hallway, thus walked straight into him. Losing her balance, she promptly dropped her heavy bag on his foot.

"Ouch!" The boy's knees buckled and he sank to the ground.

Horrified, Hermione bent down to assist him. "I'm sorry, are you okay? Oh, _damn_ -" She winced as a black mark blossoming over her bag indicated her ink bottle had broken.

"I'm fine, you just surprised me. Here -" The boy leaned over and scooped up her fallen quills as Hermione frantically siphoned the ink off of her books. With his help, she cleaned up the books and her bag before they became too damaged, and Hermione repaired the ink bottle with a final wave of her wand.

"Thank you," she said appreciatively as she ran her fingers over the book spines in her bag. "Sorry for dropping it on your -"

She forgot to finish her sentence as she finally took a good look at the boy's face.

"Foot," Remus Lupin supplied helpfully, after a pause in which Hermione stared at him, completely stunned in place. "But it's no problem."

Hermione had to force herself to move, although her eyes remained fixated on his brown hair and familiar kind eyes. She had seen several pictures, from Harry's special album of old photographs, of young Remus Lupin but it was different to see him in real life and so close to her. Remus, with no wrinkles of loss and sadness in his eyes. Remus, whom she'd last seen rushing into battle, Tonks following after him. Remus, whom she had always considered a protector, and whom Harry loved nearly as much as he did Sirius. His name formed on her lips but she couldn't utter it.

"Are you okay?" Remus asked now, peering at her. "You look a bit pale."

Hermione cleared her throat and blinked. Words fell out of her mouth before she could process them. "Yes, I'm fine. I'm Hermione, by the way."

"Remus." He smiled pleasantly and cocked his head to the side as he spotted her green and silver tie. "Aren't you one of the new exchange students?"

"Yes, I am."

"Well, I hope that you like Hogwarts so far," said Remus warmly. "If you ever need anything -"

He was suddenly cut off by several, simultaneous loud exclamations.

"Oi, is that you, Moony?"

"Remmy! Did you wait for us?"

"Ooh, who's _that_?"

Hermione's gaze snapped up and over Remus's shoulder toward the sound of the voices. She thought of something Hagrid had once told Harry: where one Marauder went, the rest soon followed. And Remus only smiled over his shoulder as three dark-haired boys sporting Gryffindor ties bounded over to where he and Hermione stood.

And Hermione suddenly found four young Marauders standing in front of her.

"Hey. Isn't this…?" Sirius began.

Her eyes raked over Sirius's clear grey eyes and Peter Pettigrew's stout figure. The way Remus was giving his friends an affectionate grin. And James… Hermione finally understood all those "You're-the-spitting-image-of-your-father"s that Harry received. James looked so much like Harry, so much that her heart called toward him and _ached_ for her best friend. She felt the urge to throw her arms around James and whisper Harry's name.

"... one of the exchange students?"

Hermione's eyes swiveled back to Sirius, his dark hair and chiseled face as vibrant and, yes, awfully handsome as she had ever seen it. She felt like she was in a dream, a Pensive, looking upon the prime image of Sirius Black.

She remembered to stick out a hand. "I'm Hermione Granger," she said, rather eagerly. "It's nice to meet you." She waited for him to grab her hand too. She waited for his fingers to grasp hers like she had grasped his brother's.

Instead, Sirius's face twisted into a scowl.

"You're one of the new Slytherins in our year." Hermione had known him enough when he'd been alive that she could detect the underlying scorn in his tone. The dislike in his eyes, was familiar when she looked up at him, trepidation in her own.

"I'm sorry?" she squeaked out. But comprehension was already beginning to dawn on her.

Her hand slid awkwardly out of the bridge of space between them - the four Gryffindors and the one Slytherin - and to Hermione's side. Her previous excitement and wonder was now fading to a comprehending frustration that burned against the iciness in James Potter's posture.

Her heart clenched in anticipation as James opened his mouth, but when James spoke aloud, Hermione had to admit that she was a little relieved he did not sound like Harry. That was on the account of the taunting lilt in his voice.

"Guess Slytherin is treating you well." James Potter gave Hermione a grin, and her heart clenched again, in shock this time. Harry sometimes used that smile for Draco Malfoy. He used that smile for Umbridge. He used that smile to hurt in the rare times he was hurt enough himself to want to hurt others. Hermione had never, ever seen that particular smile directed at anyone Harry considered a friend, not even that time with Ron in the forest, and yet the same condescending smile was being given to her right now, with ease because she was a _Slytherin._

Slytherin _. Slytherin._ She bit back frustration and swallowed the surge of anger toward Blaise Zabini. Oh, _why_ did she have to be Slytherin in this era?

Hermione watched Harry's father with pained eyes as he shouldered past her, like Snape had earlier, and said, "Whatever. Let's eat, boys."

"Leave the snake to do her thing," Sirius crowed. He spared a goading glance for her before enthusiastically following James, and Hermione was surprised at the rush of anger and indignation that surfaced as she hardened her gaze after his figure.

Hermione turned away sharply, and suddenly met young Peter Pettigrew's eyes. The mousy-haired boy seemed momentarily petrified into place by her gaze, and there was something in his brown eyes as he looked at her. He lowered his stare before she could identify what it was, though, before leaving Hermione and Remus alone once more.

Hermione half-heartedly steeled herself as she looked at Remus. She did not really think that he would be hostile to her, and indeed Remus's expression as he watched his friends leave was sheepish, not cold.

"Sorry about that," he ventured hesitantly, and a rush of warmth instantly flowed through Hermione's veins. "I know you probably didn't need that on your first day here -"

"It's quite alright," Hermione assured him quickly. She was simply relieved at his unchanged attitude.

Remus still looked uncomfortable, and he waved his hands. "There's some perpetual… rivalry between the Gryffindor and Slytherin Houses."

Despite herself, Hermione hid a smile that surfaced to her lips. "I understand. You ought to get your breakfast now."

Remus gave her a warm, apologetic smile before bidding her goodbye and heading off into the Great Hall.

Now alone, Hermione stood unmoving in the hallway for several moments, processing the past events one movement and expression at a time. She eventually forced herself to continue on her way through the castle, though it was with no direction in mind and at a slow pace.

As silently as she had bore the Marauder's obvious dislike, the indignation that had surfaced at Sirius's taunting last comment still burned in Hermione's stomach. But as Hermione walked up flights up stairs and into corridors she had last seen crumbling under Death Eaters' attacks, the anger directed itself at the tie presently choked around her neck.

Because Hermione understood James and Sirius's judgement and scorn more than they would ever know.

She understood, so she wanted to run after them and convince them that she was Gryffindor on the inside, no matter what color tie she wore. She understood that they would have reacted very differently had they not been repulsed as she as the sight of the mere, foul green accent on her school uniform.

Hermione understood that Harry's father and Sirius were good people. But no matter how much she knew why they hated Slytherins, no matter how much she had just been scorning the Slytherins at the breakfast table, no matter how much she _understood_ \- Blaise Zabini's words slithered into her mind and began to echo almost tauntingly, the ones he had spoken on the very first night they arrived.

" _You're quick to judge without knowing anything._ "

The words prodded at her consciousness with their dark tendrils, whispering to her of James Potter's cool smile and Sirius's cruel heavy gaze. And the more Hermione thought about those words, the more she disliked Blaise with every step.

* * *

 **Whew! This was a longer chapter with lots in it, and I hope you liked it :) As always, thank you for the reads, follows, reviews.**

 **I have to warn you that I'm going to busy for the next couple of weeks and probably won't update until toward the end of the month. Hopefully I'll be able to update more often after that, though!**

 **(And yes, I'm channeling my love for Jane Austen into this chapter's title. XD)**

 **xo Summer**


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